6 beauty

Signal Box, Basel

In the case of the Signal Box in Basel, its operative skin is made out of copper strips. The copper volume houses a railway signal box whose own concrete shell is both insulated and hidden in a way so that its geometric shape becomes undetectable. With the copper skin, the building’s body seems indeterminate; all traces of use and spatial pattern such as floor divisions and openings are no longer recognizable. Yet with the twist of the strips at certain points to admit light, the copper volume becomes analogous to a mask where eyes and nose are cut out, giving us a clue as to how the body oper- ates and formed. The twist of copper strips is more than an aesthetic configuration for it allows us to detect a pattern of inhabitation. For the first glance at the Tate Modern, the architects seem to create

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ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY

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